


fault lines

by arabellagaleotti



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Afghanistan, Character Death, Don't Ask Don't Tell, Gay Tony Stark, Guilt, Homophobia, M/M, Military, Military Homophobia, Philosophy, Romance, bi tony stark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-07
Updated: 2019-06-07
Packaged: 2020-04-12 09:18:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19129084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arabellagaleotti/pseuds/arabellagaleotti
Summary: “The guys on base say you’re a real party animal.”Tony shrugs. “I guess.” Most people like to call him things, he never really listens.“Um...” Charlie fidgets, “they also say you don’t mind...gender.”“Bi,” Tony corrects, blowing smoke into the wind. “The word is bisexual. I like girls...and boys.”“Oh.”“If you’re,” Tony seems to grimace over the word, “ uncomfortable, you can go.”“I’m not uncomfortable,” he breathes, hair flopping over his face.Tony smiles, all slick and sharp, “good.”OR,Tony Stark meets a soldier on a base. They're destined. He dies. And Tony learns something, along the way.





	fault lines

**_one. the soldier._ **

 

He goes to Afghanistan for a demo, it goes well, of course it does, he’s the king of demos, Obie likes to say. _the king of death_ something in his mind likes to whisper.

 

After he’s done, there’s a half hour meant for him to schmooze with government officials before he has to catch his plane back to the states. Which, really, as he keeps saying to Rhodey, it’s _his_ , shouldn't it wait for _him_?

 

He’s not particularly fond of playing nice, so instead he uses that gap not schmooze, but to wander off a little past the military site and sit in the sand. The sky is that sort of impossible shade of blue he used to cherish as child. But he’s not a child anymore. He’s made that well clear with the booze and the women and the parties. He lights a cigarette from the pack in his jacket pocket and sends smoke into the sky with a flick of the lighter next to it and a quick inhale.

 

“Sir! You can’t be out here, sir!”

 

Tony turns his head curiously. A soldier is walking forward, obviously having called his name before.

 

“Hey, Soldier,” he yells back, beckons him over. The soldier, dressed in his desert camo, looks uneasy, but draws closer. “Come, come, sit,” he says, turning back to the sky, inhaling smoke as he does.

 

The soldier does, although reluctantly, sit.

 

“Nice Stark Sub-Machine M7,” he says, without looking at him. “Gotta be careful of the kick on that one, couldn’t get it ironed out proper without compromising force. And you know the military likes it's force, huh?”

 

“Best in the game, sir,” he says back, smiling just a little, “even if it gives me bruises.”

 

He laughs, and thinks he must look crazy, sitting here. They rest in silence for a moment before Tony exhales heavily, smoke curling out with his breath. The soldier looks at him sideways.

 

“What, want a puff?” Tony offers, brash until he can’t be anymore

 

“No, no I — I don’t smoke, sir.”

 

“Would you quit with the ‘sir’ business already? I feel like my father. Call me Tony.”

 

“Okay, um, Tony.”

 

“What’s your name, soldier?”

 

“I’m Charlie,” he says, almost bashfully.

 

“American. Where are you from, Ohio?”

 

“Idaho, actually,” he corrects.

 

Tony snickers a laugh, taps ash out on his expensive Italian-leather shoe. “How old are you kid, 19? 20?”

 

“Just turned 22.”

 

“Old enough to hit the good stuff huh?”  Tony brings a flask from some hidden pocket, tipping it towards his mouth before passing it to him.

 

“Oh, no, I can’t drink on site.”

 

Tony looks around over-exaggeratedly. “We’re not on site.”

 

Charlie grins, just a little, then hides it in the mouth of his flask.

 

“How old are you, si— Tony?”

 

“Good save. 23.”

 

“The guys on base say you’re a real party animal.”

 

Tony shrugs. “I guess.” Most people like to call him things, he never really listens.

 

“Um...” Charlie fidgets, “they also say you don’t mind...gender.”

 

“Bi,” Tony corrects, blowing smoke into the wind. “The word is bisexual. I like girls...and boys.”

 

“Oh.”

 

“If you’re,” Tony seems to grimace over the word, “ _uncomfortable_ , you can go.”

 

“I’m not uncomfortable,” he breathes, hair flopping over his face. It's a particular shade, right next to blonde but sitting a seat closer to brown.

 

Tony smiles, all slick and sharp, “good.”

 

**_two. batter-boy._ **

 

Rhodey’s sick, so they get a new representative in. Tony pulls a few strings and Private First Class Charles Baust gets the job.

 

“Hey,” Tony grins at him from across a conference table. They’re in a meeting room about to go over something or rather for something or rather.

 

Charlie laughs when he sees him, sitting in the big(ger), lush leather chair specifically made to irritate hot-headed, red-blooded, American generals who think they’re better than him. “You’ve _got_ to be kidding me. _You_ did this?”

 

“Rhodey’s sick as a dog, will be out for the next month or two. You're up, batter boy.”

 

“Oh yeah. What teams are _you_ batting for?” he blinks, almost innocently, if not for the edge of amusement almost hidden under his mile-long eyelashes.

 

He smirks, leans across the table as the brass filters in through the door.  “Yours, of course.”

 

The meeting goes as well as it can when you stuff Tony Stark in a room with the US military. But he makes _as many_ baseball references as possible, which is a surprisingly large amount. Every time he does, Charlie snickers, just a little.

 

**_three. ants._ **

 

They watch the sun go down, that night. They’re sitting on a big concrete block abandoned at the edge of the base, looking across the endless sands to the orange, purple, pink, fanning across the sky. It looks like something from a painting, maybe. He's never really been one for the conventional type of beauty, let alone art. He likes the bare functionality of things, them doing what they’re supposed to, but even he can say:

 

“Wow,” he breathes, content to simply look, be still for the first time in an age, perhaps since he was a child, sitting at Edwin’s feet, listening to his stories.

 

“Yeah,” Charlie says, just as softly next to him. Their hands are close together, not close enough to touch, but if he or Tony reached out, just the slightest, they would be.

 

“Are the sunsets this good in Idaho?”

 

Charlie sniggers. “Not quite.”

 

There's silence. “Aren’t you worried your buddies are gonna see us?”

 

“I'm not worried about anything right now,” Charlie yawns.

 

“Getting sleepy?” Tony teases, bumping shoulders.

 

“No,” Charlies denies, sitting up straight, clenching his jaw when another one comes.

 

Tony laughs, at that. “Come on, let loose. There’s no commanders around to reprimand you for feeling basic human instincts.”

 

Charlie grins, then, pointedly, yawns as wide as he can, showing rows of pearly teeth.

 

Tony chuckles, then fixes his gaze out into the sky where the colors are rapidly disappearing. He’s feeling...pensive, suddenly. The kind of pensive he only feels at three am when his buzz is wearing off and he’s tired, so tired, and just wants to sleep, or talk, even though he's Tony Stark and no one actually wants to _talk_ to him, only steal blueprints or suck some money out of his dick.

 

“Life’s fast. Like, most of it — doesn't matter. Damn, sometimes I think nothing does. But things like this —” he motions at the sky “-- they _do_. So we gotta kinda..hold on to them, you know? Both hands, never let go.”

 

“Yeah,” Charlie almost-pants? His eyes are locked on the sky, unwavering, unmoving. He seems like the kind of person that doesn't give up. "It makes me feel...forgotten, already. Like it doesn't even matter if I exist or not. They'll remember you, in a hundred years, but they won't remember me. I'm just a soldier."

 

“You're more than a soldier," Tony says, "and yeah, you're right. They won't remember you. But I will."

 

He smiles, just a little, but it's personal, _intimate_ in a way that even sex isn't. "What about you?" Charlie asks, eyes cast to the ground, to their dangling feet. A little lizard skitters past, hides inside a crack in the concrete block. 

 

"It makes me feel small,” Tony whispers, eyes on the fire of the sky like Charlie’s. This could be demolition, apocalypse. “It makes me feel like an ant, running around on a military base full of other ants, on a planet full of other ants.”

 

“Nothing we do matters, right?” Charlie says, looking at him intently. ”There's comfort in that, too.”

 

“Yeah, there is,” he breathes, “I think there really is.”

 

This does feel like apocalypse, but there's always life after apocalypse. So, no, this isn't an apocalypse. This is re-birthing. Absolution. Freedom.

 

**_four. my man of iron._ **

 

Charlie sends the number of the cell phone he uses on deployment.

 

There’s a long dial tone as they connect, then a click.

 

“Hi,” he sounds slightly breathless.

 

“Hey,” Tony says back. He’s more nervous than he should be, but he tries to hide it.

 

“Where are you?” he asks, just as something to do. “apparently you were in Japan?”

 

“Yeah. Business, but I went sightseeing, if you call a club sightseeing, that is. I’m back home, now.”

 

Charlie chuckles, “I don’t, really. Where is home?”

 

“California, or New York, depending on the day. I’ll take you, sometime.. We can uh, have a date.”

 

“Sure. Yeah, I'd — I’d um, like that.”

 

There’s silence over the line. It feels awkward, now. Like cement is where the air was, and it’s laid on his skin, heavy and thick and suffocating.

 

Do you have any more philosophical ideas?” he changes topic abruptly, and Tony smiles. The cement is gone.

 

He laughs, “I do, actually. Don't you ever think we’re meant to to be one thing and one thing only?”

 

“Like what?”

 

“I don't know. I’m a builder. You're a soldier. Do you think that's what you're meant to be?”

 

“Yeah,” he says. “I do, actually. What about you?”

 

“I know this is who I'm meant to be..  Know it in my _soul_.”

 

“You’re my man of iron, baby,” and it's said low and quiet, like a secret, which, Tony supposes, they are.

 

Tony laughs and laughs, “and you’re my soldier, _baby_ ,” he says like the dirty thing it could be.

 

**_five. colony._ **

 

“I saw you on some magazine,” he says, almost roughly.

 

“Yeah,” Tony replied coolly, “I’m in magazines a lot.”

 

“I don't want you to be.”

 

“Why?” It’s an iceberg question; all under the surface.

 

“I thought we were pledged, or something. I know you’re,” this next bit is whispered, “ _bi_ , so if you need a woman or, or something and if — if we ain’t enough then —”

 

“We’re enough. You're enough. I don’t need a girl. I won’t sleep with them, I wasn't really before.”

 

“Okay,” he breathes. “Okay.”

 

“I…” the words hesitate in his mouth, “I’m… sorry.”

 

“For what? We never talked about it.”

 

“No. The fact that you have to whisper when you’re calling me, that you can’t tell anyone who you’re talking to, that you’re scared your buddies are gonna see. All of it.”

 

“I — can’t change the word. We’re ants, remember, and ants don’t change the laws of their hive or whatever the fuck—”

 

“Colony,” Tony interrupts. “They’re called colonies.”

 

“Yeah. They don't change their laws because of a few queer ants fucking it all up, and neither do we.”

 

“I know. I’m sick of it.”

 

“Me too, me too,” he says, like a promise. “But we’re fucking pledged now, we’re destined.”

 

“Destined,” Tony reaffirms, trying it out on his tongue.

 

**_six. a blaze of blood and bullets._ **

 

Charlie dies a year after that, in a blaze of blood and bullets.

 

After he got out of deployment, they were gonna go on a date, like they talked about. He was gonna take him to Malibu, to the beach, where they would lay in the dunes and smoke and drink and make jokes.

 

Now, he’s _dead_.

 

Tony screams and screams into his pillow. It's not fair, it's not fair, it's not _fair_.

 

He looks at his hands, shaking, pathetic, horrible hands and vows. He vows he’s not going to have any part in the killing of young Americans, any part in their deaths.

 

He skips a few meetings, burns a couple designs before he realising what he’s doing.

 

He's killing more soldiers like Charlie.

 

His tech protect them, not kill them.

 

Guns that don't jam up, bullet-proof vests, tasers and helmets and equipment. He could have saved Charlie. if he wasn't so busy boozing around and drinking and having the time of his life, he could have saved him.

 

It's his fault.

 

 _His_.

 

The realisation is almost more than he can take, his back bends, his hands shake. He can barely lift the bottle to his lips, but he does, anyway.

 

_He killed Charlie._

 

_Charlie is dead because of him._

 

_Oh, god._

 

 

He works.

 

He works and he works and he works.

 

If the government is confused by the sudden churning out of weapons, of bulletproof vests and body armour and guns, but they don’t say anything.

 

Tony shakes hands with as many people as he can bear, then watches them shake, shake.

 

His, he remembers. His fault. It’s tattooed onto his soul, and there’s no laser removal for him.

 

He won't forget Charlie, that's for sure.

 

**_seven. brother._ **

 

The funeral is three days after he dies, two after he heard. Nobody knew about them. Nobody told him. He only found out after he missed their bi-weekly phone call and did some inquiries.

 

He goes to Idaho, for the first and possibly last time.

 

His burial is solemn. His mother is there, a few brothers, a sister, uncles, aunts, cousins, grandparents. All of them, except him.

 

He stands at the back, wears a hat tipped over his eyes and a black hat. He is a fly on the wall.

 

“You’re Tony Stark.” The voice shocks him, he turns, quick.

 

It’s a lean boy, maybe 18. He has dark, curly hair like what he thinks is Charlie’s mother but the rest of his face, oh, they could be twins. It's like looking at him again.

 

“You...you look like him,” he says, without even realising it.

 

His eyes go flinty. “I know. Ma cries every-time she sees me.”

 

“I’m sorry.”

 

“Yeah. I bet. What is a millionaire doin’ here?”

 

“Billion, actually,” he corrects if only to prolong this. Prolong getting to talk to Charlie, even if he’s sharp and cutting and more angry than he ever was over the phone or sitting next to each other.

 

“Like I care,” he spits, and okay, bad idea, that hurts, seeing that from Charlie's face. “What are you doing at my brother’s funeral?”

 

“I would assume what you do at funerals.”

 

“How did you even know my brother, and why do you care?”

 

“We met at some military base. I don't remember what one,” Tony shrugs boldly, looks at Ch— his brother like he’s ready for a fight at the graveside of his...his pledged. "It was two years ago," he adds, almost soft.

 

(Thankfully) Charlie’s brother doesn't seem up for a brawl at a funeral. He deflates, goes soft. “I know that he...he sometimes didn’t…”

 

“Like girls?” Tony interrupts blandly. His face is blank. Everything is blank, in the two days since Charlie has died.

 

The brother blinks back at him.

 

“Yeah. I uh...I know about that.”

 

“Huh. My brother goes off and dies, ends up with a man in the process.”

 

Tony almost, almost laughs at that. “I guess.”

 

“You knew him good?”

 

Tony swallows. “Well, sometimes I think he knew me better than anyone in the world, so, yeah.”

 

The brother looks over his shoulder, at the swath of black and mourning. “Ma will be okay without me. I’ll show you his room.”

 

His room is just like he’d imagined it, just like he had talked out. It’s stuffed with awards and statues and medals from various sporting events. The bed is still made. The shelves are dusty. It's the jock of every high school movie’s bedroom.

 

There’s a box, in the corner.

 

“That’s all of his stuff from the base,” Charlie's brother says.

 

He steps forward, opens it. It’s just a few personal effects, pictures of family, of army buddies. One of him, grinning like a dog at the camera. He slips it inside his jacket. There’s his cellphone, scuffed now. He looks at it for a moment but leaves it.

 

Right at the bottom, there's a tattered gossip magazine. He picks it up, flicks through it. One page is dog-eared.

 

_TONY STARK DATING SUPERMODEL?_

 

Underneath is a picture of him grinning widely, hand captured by some leggy blonde he doesn't remember the name of, anymore. They’re outside a club, it’s dark, she's tugging him away from the cameras, but it's only to fuel the chase.

 

He grabs the cell phone again, in a sudden fit of passion. He turns it on, scrolls to _contacts_ , finds his number, just called _tony_ and with a shaking hand, deletes it.

 

There.

 

They’re gone.

 

Tony bends down on the rug and sobs and sobs into his hand.

 

He remembers, he remembers but they're  _gone._

 

**_eight. the after._ **

 

After that, he throws himself into his work. More than he thought possible. He blasts music and stands the picture of Charlie he stole (burrowed, he’ll give it back in his will or something) in the corner of his workbench, just as a reminder. It’s not one of them, there's not one of them, but he looks happy in it. He’s in duty, helmet on, Stark gun slung over his shoulder, face flushed and grinning at the camera.

 

Pepper finds it when she’s giving him coffee or delivering something one day.

 

“What's this?” she asks, lifting it up from its place.

 

“Oh just —” he cuts off at the look she sends him. “That’s Charlie.”

 

“A soldier. That you have a picture of on your desk.” she sends a glance his way, obviously implying something. She's not wrong, but he’s gotta tell her.

 

“He’s dead. So.”

 

“Oh, I’m — I’m sorry,” she covers a hand with her heart. “What happened?”

 

“Gun malfunctioned, or bulletproof vest didn’t work, or my missiles weren't good enough,” he mutters. “They wouldn't tell me. Maybe they don't even know.”

 

“No, Tony. That's not your fault.” She says it like it’s obvious.

 

Tony just shrugs, “how am I meant to know?”

 

“He was a _soldier_. They die. Not the best tech in the world could have saved him.”

 

“Yeah. well, not making that mistake again. I’m saving them now.”

 

“Is that what you spend all day down here?”

 

“I didn’t even get to go on a date with him, Pepper. The closest I ever got was sitting on concrete block, watching the sunset. I’m not letting that happen to other people.”

 

“You can’t control the after, Tony. You can't control the now, either.”

 

“I’m not controlling the after, I'm controlling the future.”

 

“But you _can’t_ , Tony. It’s impossible. It’s fate, destiny, whatever.”

 

“Was it his fate to die?” Tony says, icy cold, staring down at her. “Was it?”

 

She wilts, “no, no, you’re...you’ve got all twisted up. Charlie died, and that's terrible. It’s horrible. But it’s not your fault. It's not _anyone's_ fault.”

 

“I wish I could believe you, Pepper. But the fact that there's hardly any proof we knew each other says otherwise.”

 

She doesn't say anything as he storms out, goes to get drunk or high or both, forgets for one second, that he's dead. And who did it.

 

**_nine. karma._ **

 

Then, then he’s on a military base again, and in the face of every young soldier he sees Charlie. One mentions, _“Idaho,”_ in a fragment of conversation as he’s walking past. He turns before he can catch himself, reaches out before he can stop. The soldier turns to a tap on his shoulder.

 

“Tony Stark?” he asks. His eyes are hazelnut, not Charlie’s blue, and his hair is too dark, far too dark. Charlie was a shade of blonde, _this_ young idealistic American is closer to his hair rather than Steve Roger’s.

 

“Yeah. Hi. Just wanted to say, uh, good job, on the whole serve and protect thing.”

 

“Thank you, sir,” he nods stuffy and turns back to the group, staring with the faces of soldiers trained not to be curious at what goes on with the higher-ups.

 

Tony holds a hand to his head, keeps on walking.

 

He needs a fucking drink.

 

—

 

He goes though his demo, stuns the brass, and downs a scotch just to clear his head from the irrational urge to have a cigarette like he hasn't in years.

 

—

 

Then he's in a cave, and he thinks _finally, finally, karma._

 

“The most famous mass murderer in the history of America,” Raza says, and Tony wants so badly to spit in his face in that moment.

 

He doesn't kill. He _saves_.

 

He’s saved for so many years that maybe, just maybe, he’s washed out the bloodshed he caused before.

 

—

 

And you, Stark? Yinsen asks, and Tony thinks for a lot longer than a moment.

 

“No.” he decides, and Yinsen almost thinks it’s a taunt, by the look of him.

 

“No? So you're a man who has everything, and nothing?”

 

 _I had charlie,_ he almost wishes he could say, but doesn't.

 

He never does.

 

—

 

In the helicopter ride back to some base. He thinks.

 

Accountability isn't something he’s thought about. For the last ten years, his mind has been on fault. Fault and prevention and salvation.

 

He has to stop. Pepper was right.

 

He’s not helping anything. He’s fuelling the fire.

 

He needs to extinguish it.

 

**_ten. the end._ **

 

He gets home and cries, for the first time that he will admit to since he was a child. He wraps the blankets around his body in the bed too big for him, watches the light slide across the walls as his mind whirls.

 

He knows, logically he need to rest.

 

He also knows that now he has another death weighing on him, that he can't waste this chance at life he’s been given.

 

So, he pushes the blankets off him, staggers down to the workshop and _builds_.

 

He calls Christine Everhart, and after a few minutes of frosty bickering hiding mild concern, she agrees to call him ‘Iron-Man’ when the opportunity surfaces. Apart from that, she is sworn to secrecy.

 

—

 

Ten or so hours later, while the first Iron-Man suit is in fabrication, he staggers down to the beach.

 

The waves are a constant, gentle white noise that he stands in, watching the dawn rise. He closes his eyes, listens to it all, grabs onto the moment with both hands.

 

He walks further down, towards the sea, which he can smell already, salty and briny.

 

He reaches the dunes, right at the top of the beach, and slumps down, not minding the sand in his suit. His chest is aching, but he lies on back anyway, stares at the sky as it lightens.

 

“Bye, Charlie,” he whispers, toasts with a swig of his flask and a cigarette he lights but doesn't smoke. It burns, right there next to him, like a nicotine-scented shrine to something that will never be again.

 

He feels...okay. Better even. Like something has been put to rest.

 

He feels free.

 

Not free of Charlie, because he will always be there, with him.

 

Free of the guilt.

 

Charlie didn't die for nothing, or for something. Charlie died because soldiers die. Because of a stray bullet or grenade or bomb that he couldn't have stopped even if he was right next to him.

 

Charlie is not his fault.

 

But a whole mountain of other stuff is, and he’s gotta solve that shit now. Speaking of, isn’t there a gala on, tonight?

  


**Author's Note:**

> hi! 
> 
> so, i hoped you all liked that, i certainly had fun writing it!
> 
> please give me some constructive criticism in the comments, and feel free to leave a kudos too!
> 
> thanks!
> 
> -arabellagaleotti


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